Andrew Reid

Do people realise that blogs are an opinion and that an opinion is entitled to be in favour of something?   It isn't always about being objective.   Personal opinions matter a lot.   Unless the skewing is for reasons other than just liking something.   When people criticise Philip Bloom for example, for being skewed in favour of a camera, it's his opinion and he can be biased if he wants. It's his choice to use what he likes. We all have our personal reasons for using something in the end...

This blog has been going 4 years now and to be honest I have run out of interesting things to say about the current DSLRs. It's time to upgrade. 2014 will be a big overhaul for image quality on DSLRs. Even those who don't need the extra resolution 4K offers will change their minds when they see what's coming. You see, 4K isn't really about resolution at all… It is the catalyst for a massive leap in overall image quality, especially on consumer cameras. Read the full article here

Judged in isolation the A7R lacking IS isn't such a big deal but remember, this is a comparison and you are comparing a camera with the world's best stabilisation to one with absolutely none, unless you use a Sony 24-70mm F4 for £1100 or a crappy kit zoom, also with a slow aperture.   At least Canon and Nikon have a big range of IS lenses you can choose from when you need it, including fast primes like the new 35mm F2.0 IS.   I'm an A7R owner and a E-M1 owner so it's all real world experience I'm basing this on. Believe me, the stabilisation makes a big difference on the E-M1 by comparison, to overall handling and feel, not just for video.

Can Olympus survive? The scandal is over, but sales are faltering. Their prized position in the mirrorless market is threatened by a revitalised Sony and their Alpha range. This succeeds the NEX line and brings full frame sensors to the table along with 36MP and nearly 14 stops dynamic range. My full review of the Sony A7R is coming soon, ditto for the E-M1. Until then let's take a look at how the top of the range mirrorless cameras perform head to head - not just at video but stills too. Read the full article here

  When calling something "fake" it helps to make a distinction between photoshop and prototype.

It's not a fake, there's a lot of photos and snapshots from the Panasonic booth and they all show the same thing.

4K sticker on a GH3. Very weak way for Panasonic to make it 'official'. Could they not have made a bigger and more imaginative splash than this?

  No just buy the GH4 K instead!

Nice, but big shame about the lens. They should use the one from the RX10!   XAVC-S codec is also a good thing.

A suggestion from left field, is the Digital Bolex camera.   None of the current CMOS sensor based cameras aside from the upcoming Blackmagic Production Camera 4K can capture lightning properly due to the rolling shutter.   The Digital Bolex has a CCD and global shutter readout.   The Blackmagic Production Camera has a CMOS and global shutter so is also an option but 4K at such high bitrates in ProRes likely isn't what you want to have rolling for hours on end, due to the file sizes.   I'd seriously consider either one of those over any of the current popular choices!

  The Magic Lantern community has good leaders.   Personal View does not.   A community is a bit like a family.   Look at the behaviour of the parents and that will tell you about the behaviour of the kids.

Beware! This review is LONG! Have ten cups of coffee at the ready, or print it out and give it as a (late) Christmas present to someone you don't like. The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera is already good, we've established that much. But what's really making this a unique camera what is going on around it. Read the full article here

  http://cheesycam.com/mitakon-lens-turbo-chart-tests-gh3/   Stopped down to F5.6 only. What's the point? Let's see it wide open Mr Cheesy.   Until then just get the Metabones ones. With something this essential it doesn't make much sense to save a few bob and end up turning all your many dollars worth of lenses into mud-o-vision.

That's a typo, it should say "play ALL 60 frames". I'll rephrase the sentence. Cheers

Conclusion in Part 2 is coming very soon, I wanted to wait until the Cinema DNG update and to get some shooting done with that.

  That's absolutely amazing from an engineering point of view. Fashion accessory? You must be joking. That my friend is pure innovation.   I could imagine putting the Mac Pro in hand luggage on a flight.   It has a great deal many practical purposes.

You need to sharpen both the D5200 and D5300 in post as it's too soft straight out of the camera.

Panasonic pack in the firmware features like no other. Peaking needs hardware support on the chipset. It isn't possible on the GH3 to add it with a firmware update. You can still get peaking on the GH3 via HDMI by using a monitor which supports peaking.   As for a GH3 hack, I'm glad Kiselev has not risen to the challenge this time. He can stay in his weird anti-West kingdom on his forum and build his community. Just so long as I never ever have to deal with him again.

  The lenses chapters will certainly be useful for GM1 and G6 owners. My cinematography tips too hopefully!

The Quad core Mac Pro in the UK is £300 more than the top of the range Macbook Pro Retina 15" with raw / CUDA capable GPU...   http://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/mac-pro   But much more powerful of course.   No £2500 is not cheap for a dustbin but it will set you up for 5 years of 4K editing. So to some might be a good investment! Not for everyone, that's for certain.

Hackintosh it! :)

Are you using a NAS for the 2 HDDs?

Above, left: Shane Meadows shoots with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera Shane Meadows (Dead Man's Shoes, This Is England) is in my view the best filmmaker since Danny Boyle to come out of the North of England. He's recently been shooting a Stone Roses documentary and met Jake Bugg at a recent gig. His Blackmagic shoot was a music video for the British singer-songwriter, for the track "Slumville Sunrise". Here's what Shane had to say about the shoot - Read the full article here

Good luck controlling the aperture of your Canon EF lenses on the BMPCC :)   The SLR Magic 12mm T1.6 is a nice one to go for wide angle but isn't as cheap as the 14mm F2.5. I rate it far more highly though. Then you need a fast 17mm or 25mm and it gets a bit more complicated because the good ones are $600+   Try a c-mount 25mm F1.4 and pray :)

It's true you can edit 4K on a laptop BUT you need either SSD or a RAID array, a bog standard HDD won't cut it. An SSD on its own is too small and a RAID array won't fit in a laptop. So you're attaching the RAID drives to the laptop via USB 3.0 I take it?